The European Union's new artificial intelligence law takes effect on August 1, significantly changing the landscape of AI regulations. This act is to oversee how companies develop, use, and apply AI technologies for their usage. This step will mark a major step towards responsible and ethical usage of AI within the EU member nations.
The EU's executive body, including EU member states, lawmakers, and the European Commission, gave their final approval to the AI Act in May 2024. This decision can be seen as the EU’s commitment to realizing the use of AI in a way that benefits society while minimizing the potential harm of its side effects.
What is the AI Act?
With the increasing usage of artificial intelligence all over the world, AI is considered to be the new future. European Union has come up with a law that will regulate the functioning of AI applications.
The AI Act is an EU law that governs artificial intelligence across member countries. This act will ensure consistent regulation and oversight of the AI functions within the union. First suggested by the European Commission in 2020, the law aims to tackle the negative effects of AI.
The main target of this act is large U.S. tech companies, the main creators and developers of advanced AI systems around the world. However, these rules will also affect many other businesses, including non-tech companies.
The regulation provides a unified and simplified framework for AI regulations across the EU member nations. The act uses a risk-based approach to manage the technology.
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How Will This AI Act Work?
The AI Act uses a risk-based approach to regulate AI, meaning different AI applications are regulated based on the risks they pose to society.
For "high-risk" AI applications, strict rules are set. These include proper risk assessment and mitigation, high-quality training data to reduce bias, regular logging of activities, and mandatory sharing of detailed documentation with authorities to ensure compliance.
High-risk AI examples include self-driving cars, medical devices, loan approval systems, educational scoring, and remote biometric identification systems.
The law also bans any AI applications considered "unacceptable" due to their high risk.
Who will be Affected Most?
Some of the biggest US tech giants, such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Meta have been pouring money into Artificial Intelligence (AI) by partnering with or funding top-of-the-notch AI companies. These are the giants that will be affected by these rules.
Cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud are crucial for AI development due to the significant computing power required for training and running AI models. Because of their major role in AI, these big tech companies will be most affected by the new AI rules.
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